This disclosure relates generally to online systems, and, more specifically, to selecting content for presentation to online system users.
A social networking system allows its users to connect to and to communicate with other users. Users may create profiles on a social networking system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Because of the increasing popularity of social networking systems and the significant amount of user-specific information maintained by social networking systems, a social networking system allows users to easily communicate information about themselves to other users and share content with other users. For example, a social networking system provides content items to a user describing actions performed by other users of the social networking system who are connected to the user. Presenting users with content items describing interactions may increase user interaction with the social networking system.
Additionally, entities (e.g., a business) sponsor presentation of content items (“sponsored content” or “sponsored content items”) via a social networking system to gain public attention for the entity's products or services, or to persuade social networking system users to take an action regarding the entity's products or services. Many social networking systems receive compensation from an entity for presenting social networking system users with certain types of sponsored content items provided by the entity. Frequently, social networking systems charge an entity for each presentation of sponsored content to an online system user (e.g., each “impression” of the sponsored content) or for each interaction with sponsored content by a social networking system user (e.g., each “conversion”). For example, a social networking system receives compensation from an entity each time a content item provided by the entity is displayed to a user on the social networking system or each time a user presented with the content item requests additional information about a product or service described by the content item by interacting with the content item (e.g., requests a product information page by interacting with the content item).
An entity may associate a sponsored content item with targeting criteria specifying characteristics of online system users eligible to be presented with the sponsored content item. This allows the entity to identify a group of online system users to be presented with the sponsored content item, such as online system users likely to be interested in a product or a service associated with the sponsored content item. For example, an entity associates targeting criteria with sponsored content item about surfboards that identify users associated with locations in California or Hawaii as eligible to be presented with the sponsored content item, as these users may be more likely to be interested than the sponsored content item than users associated with other locations. Conventionally, entities identify information associated with online system users (e.g., demographic information in users profiles maintained by an online system) as targeting criteria to identify users eligible to be presented with a sponsored content item. However, to use information associated with an online system user to select content, the online system requires the user to be logged into the online system to allow the online system to identify the user and retrieve information associated with the user by the online system.
Presenting content items, such as sponsored content items, irrelevant to users, an online system may reduce user interaction with content provided by the online system. Reduced user interaction with content may decrease potential revenue to the online system from presentation of sponsored content items. For example, if an online system charges an entity for each interaction with a sponsored content item by an online system user, presenting the sponsored content items to users who are unlikely to have an interest in the sponsored content items are unlikely to interact with the sponsored content item. This lack of interaction may discourage the entity from providing additional sponsored content items to the user for subsequent presentation. When a user is not logged into an online system, the online system is unable to retrieved information associated with the user by the online system, which limits the online system's ability to select content relevant to the user for presentation.